WoY: the Disease
by yensid365
Summary: Wander is infected with a serious illness called Blumonia, and must remain quarantined in the hospital until he recovers. Sylvia offers to do good deeds for him during his absence, but, even in his sorry state, Wander wants desperately to go help others outside. Can he keep his impulses under control for his own safety?


Somewhere within the vast recesses of space lay a planet that appeared to be made entirely out of pastel-colored daises. From afar, it seemed to be at peace, but toward its Northwestern hemisphere, disaster was at hand.

 _"AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"_

Daisies were not only this planet's key feature; they also made up its entire population! Each one had a cartoon face where their yellow patch of pollen stood, and two pairs of leaves for their arms and legs. They were currently using their tiny limbs to run back and forth across their soil ground in a panic, for in the midst of their colorful land sat a fifty-foot-tall, dark-gray troll. Starkly contrasting the daises soft petals, the troll had over six-hundred pounds of rock-like flesh, much of which covered the dense flabs of fat on its limbs and belly. It also had three curved horns on its head, a pair of elongated bat wings on its back, and an enormous, yellow eye, with which it stared down at its fist. The beast had taken one of the planet's citizens hostage, holding a pink daisy in its three-fingered grip. The frightened flower struggled with all her might to break free, but sadly, her leafy arms were about as forceful as tissue paper.

Despite the daisy's screams of terror, and those of her peers below, the troll reached out its right hand over her pollen head, and began to pluck the petals off one by one. Unfitting for its enormous size and morbid obesity, the creature spoke with the voice of a distraught, Caucasian, teenage girl.

"HE LOVES ME! HE LOVES ME NOT! HE LOVES ME! HE LOVES ME NOT!"

In this midst her desperation, an outside voice chimed in.

 _"HE LOVES YOU!"_

An Orbal Transporter carrying Wander and Sylvia floated toward the troll's tearful face. Regardless of her unsightly appearance and extremely unstable behavior, Wander greeted her with his typical, friendly smile, even tipping his hat in a gentleman-like fashion.

"So sorry to interrupt you, miss, but I just stopped by the post office back on Planet Boondoggle, and I noticed that the mailman accidentally mixed up some mail that belongs to YOU!"

Wander reached one hand into his green hat, and pulled out a white, sealed envelope marked "Miss Olga Ogre." The minute she saw her name, her face lit up with fangirlish ecstasy, squealing in happiness.

"GIMMIE GIMMIE GIMMIE!"

In Olga's excitement to read her letter, she let go of the daisy in the process, sending her screaming and falling several hundred feet from the air! With eyes and jaws wide with horror, Wander shot himself down through the bubble, reaching his arms out wide. Like a fuzzy, orange bullet, he zipped down to the soil, landing on his chest with his hands still extended forward. Immediately after Wander's descent, the daisy floated gently down into his palms like an autumn leaf.

"YAAAAAY!"

All the flowers cheered with joy, and the pink daisy hugged Wander's thumb in gratitude, prompting him to snuggle her in return.

By then, Olga had finished reading her letter. "YEEEES! I KNEW HE LOVED ME! I DIDN'T NEED THOSE FLOWERS ALL ALONG!"

Putting on her most daring game face, Olga spread out her wings, and made her ascent back into space.

"Thank you so much, mister!" The daisy squeaked. "All of Planet Asteraceae is in great debt to you."

"Aw, there's no debt to be paid, little lady." Wander answered. "Just doin' what comes naturally to a fellow do-gooder."

One glance at the daisy's stigma, however, and his expression dropped. Wander gasped, holding her protectively close to his chest. "Somebody tore off your PRECIOUS PETALS! Don't you worry, m'am! We will get you to a gardener or other appropriate health care professional A-S-A-P!"

"It's ok, mister." The daisy giggled. "They'll grow back."

In a moment of uncanny timing, three new petals sprouted where the previous ones were torn off, leaving a significantly smaller gap on her head.

Wander's smile returned. "Well, I am thankful that you're not at all injured. You flowers are way too pretty to just pick off like that."

Wander then took a gentle whiff at some of the elated daisies crowding nearby.

"And you smell even better too, like..." Wander sniffed again. "...Like a teddy bear washed in lavender bubble soap!"

With a high-pitched squeal, the crowd of daisies fell into a dead faint. Wander's compliments were enough to prompt every single daisy in the field to start jumping up and down, repeatedly shouting "SMELL ME, SMELL ME!"

Wander chuckled. "All right. I bet it's been ages since you fine flowers had a good smellin'." He glanced at his partner, who was hovering about ten feet off the ground in the Orbal bubble. "C'mon, Sylvia, you're missin' out!"

Sylvia popped out with a smirk on her face. "Eh, I've seen sappier things than smellin' a few flowers. Just don't try to stick your nose where it doesn't belong this time, ok?"

"Oh pish posh!" Wander dismissed. "I've been as safe with my sneezer as any fellow wanderer would be."

In Sylvia's mind, she could envision a montage of incidents where Wander's aromatic curiosity got him into trouble. The time he sniffed a rose bush, only to find that it was the leafy afro of a sentient tree in a forest; a night where he sniffed a pail of glow-in-the-dark paint, and fell into an artificial high with swirls in his eyeballs. There was even a moment where he and Sylvia visited a general store, and he smelled deeply into a chocolate cake on a stand. However, instead of chocolatey goodness, Wander's nose was greeted with a rather foul stench, so much so that it caused him to flee the store, covering his mouth with his hands. Sylvia took a closer look, and noticed that Wander had overlooked a small shelf of spray bottles beside the cake, with a small banner over them that read, "Chocoholic Be-Gone."

The present-day Sylvia kept her eyelids lowered. "Sure, you are, pal."

With effervescent giddiness, Wander darted around the entire flower field, sniffing as many daisies as he could find.

After several minutes, the daisies gave Wander a cheerful sendoff as he walked toward the dirt outskirts of the planet.

"Goodbye, ladies! Keep up the great scents!"

Just as he'd reached the planet clearing, Wander froze in place. About twenty feet in front of him sat a lone bush dotted with petunias, without any faces or movements to be seen. As if that weren't odd enough, to find non-sentient flowers in a world populated by sentient ones, these particular petunias were about the size of Wander's head, and were guarded with a two-foot-tall, thick, barbed wire fence.

Little did he suspect, about five feet behind him, some bloated, white text appeared to Wander's left, and for a brief second, it revealed two words in mid air: "the Disease."

"Gee," Wander murmured anxiously. "It's awfully strange to see a buncha pretty blue flowers all alone and...heavily guarded like that."

Unfortunately, it seemed this sneaking suspicion waned away prematurely. "Aw, c'mon, Wander. They could still be as eager for a sniffin' as the rest of their flower friends. Don't make anybody feel left out just 'cause they look different."

With his hesitation subsided, Wander made his way to the bush. "Good day, fellow flowers!"

No answer.

"You folks got any good sniffin' yet?"

Again, no answer, but Wander was not one to assume the worst easily. "Hm. I bet they're just a little shy. Must've been a while since anyone's smelled them. Well, I can help make up for the ages they might've gone without a sniffin'."

Wander leaned his head forward, and took the biggest inhale that his tiny chest could hold. During the seconds that he spent breathing in, heavy amounts of blue pollen particles rose from the petunias, flowing into the tiny nasal cavities hidden in Wander's face that resembled his nose.

Once they'd entered the dark voids of Wander's body, his eyes popped open. Rather than a calm exhale, he began sneezing and coughing rather spastically, his body bouncing every which way.

After a moment, Wander composed himself, his voice sounding somewhat nasally. "My goodness! No wonder nobody comes over to smell these flowers. They smell like rancid jellyfish pie mixed with saw dust!"

As Wander let out another dry heave, Sylvia came floating overhead in the Orbal bubble. "Hey, Wander! Your nose still alive down there?" She called, jokingly.

"I am okie dokie, Sylvia!" Wander replied.

The Zbornak extended her tail out for Wander to grab onto, and she gently placed him on the seat of her saddle. No sooner did the two leave the planet's orbit did Wander start hacking some more heavy coughs into his right fist.

Sylvia raised an eyebrow. "You sure you're ok? You don't sound so good."

Wander gave her a sheepish smile. "I-I'm fine." He coughed. "Just got a little tickle in my throat as all." He reached into his hat, and gulped down a glass of water, tossing the glass behind his shoulder.

Sylvia smiled. "So, where do ya wanna go next?"

Wander did his best to stay his upbeat self, but as he spoke, he was frequently interrupted by some more coughing. With each cough, a horizontal wave of desaturation ran down his body, gradually turning his brightly colored fur into a very pale shade of orange.

"Well, I was thinking maybe we could stop by Planet-COUGH! I hear they got an awfully nice-COUGHCOUGH! And after that, maybe we can have a lovely dinner down by the old-" At that point, poor Wander was coughing too hard to even finish his sentence.

Sylvia turned her head up in concern. "Wander, you're coughing up a storm. Maybe we should take a break from adventuring, and get you some-"

Sylvia's pupils shrunk with horror. As Wander had stopped coughing, he glanced back at her with sleepy, bloodshot eyes. However, where most eyes would turn red if they were irritated, Wander's had turned teal blue with white around the edges!

"WAAAAAHHHH!"

The sight startled Sylvia so much, she backed up against the bubble wall, forming another out of its Orbal juice.

"WANDER!" She pointed with a trembling finger. "Y-YOUR _EYES!"_

"My _eyes?"_ Wander took his hat back out, and after tiredly tossing a few knick-knacks over his shoulder, he grabbed a handheld mirror, and glanced at his reflection. It was more than enough to terrify his little heart.

 _"AAAAHHHH!"_

Wander threw the mirror out into space, and sat back against a wall of the bubble, holding his hat and trembling with both fear and chills. "Sylvia, wh-what's going on? What's wrong with my eyes?! Why am I coughing so much?! Why is my head burning up while the rest of me feels like it's freezing? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!"

Sylvia approached him with caution. "Easy there, buddy. Just calm down. I'll get you to the nearest doctor, and we can see what's-"

Before she could finish, Wander let out a brutal coughing fit, hacking into his right fist until he found his palm and lips soaked with a thick, almost blood-like, teal-blue liquid.

Wander let out another horrified gasp. "Did...Did that come outta _me?!"  
_  
Sylvia's face snapped out of trepidation to a sneer of determination, placing her friend on her back and covering him with her saddle blanket.

"Ok, forget the doctor; I'm takin' you to the hospital!"

Sylvia dove the Orbal Transporter downward, her legs spinning like wheels on a race car. "MAKE WAY, MAKE WAY! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!"

In a shocking stroke of coincidence, the nearest planet was one made of pure-white earth, with an enormous, red cross placed on its Northern hemisphere. It seemed like the perfect place to receive First Aid in space.

Before long, Wander and Sylvia were inside one of the numerous, pearl-colored, bulb-shaped buildings dotted throughout the landscape. Behind the white dome resting on the stem, Wander was resting under some white comforters in a hospital bed, staring off in a daze with tiny bubbles floating and popping over his head. His cheeks were also flushed with light blue where they would otherwise be red or pink.

Sylvia stood beside him, wringing her hands together with anxiety. "Well? How is he, Doc?"

The doctor in question was a six-foot-tall, sea-green squid, his white coat covering his entire torso and ten tentacles as though he were barrel-chested. He took another glance at the clipboard in his right tentacle arm.

"Hmm...hmmm...yes..."

"What? What?!"

The doctor replied with a rather unusual accent; a Canadian tone with more emphasis on the hard "e" and "i" vowel sounds. "It appeers that your freend has come down weeth a bad case of Blumonia."

Sylvia raised an eyebrow. "Blu-what-ia?"

"Blu-MON-ia."

The doctor opened up a beige file folder, and took out an x-ray photograph of Wander's chest. While the rest of the image was black-and-white, there was a cloudy, blue substance sprinkled inside the lungs.

"Your freends lungs have been infeected with a cloud of pollen from the rare, but reeeal, Bletunia flower."

The doctor took out another image from the folder. This time, it was a diagram of the exact same flower Wander had encountered on Planet Asteraceae.

"Thee Bletunia has a poisonous patch of pollen at the centeer. It will infeect any lungs that inhale heevy amounts of the stuff."

Wander took a closer look at the diagram, and it hardly took long to put two and two together. "So _that's_ why those flowers were off-limits..."

Sylvia's eyes popped. "Say what now?"

Wander looked down at the floor in shame. "I saw bunch of those very same flowers back at Planet Asteraceae. I felt real bad for 'em, sittin' there all alone and covered in barbed wire, but...I stuck my nose where it didn't belong...again."

Sylvia's frown grew, not in anger, but in disappointment. "Wander, you can't just let your curiosity run away with you like that, especially when it ends up this bad for your health." Sylvia placed her right hand on Wander's forehead, and a split second later, her fingers and palm turned bright red, inciting her to withdraw it immediately. "YEOW! Hot hot hot hot!"

"Do not woree, my freends," the doctor chirped. "Wee've had a cure for this diseeease for a long time now. Unfortunately, thee medicine takes its sweeet time to take into eeffect. It weell be a feew days until you will bee fully reecovered."

Wander's pupils shrank again. "A few _days?_ Just sittin' here in _bed?_ What if there's another sad soul out there in need of help?! Like a crippled man in need of crossing the street? A lost little baby in need of its mother?! A POOR FELLA DESPERATE FOR-"

Wander's panic attack ceased with another fit of coughing up blue fluid, followed by a dizzy spell in his feverish head.

Sylvia gently laid her friend back down. "Ok, buddy, you _seriously_ need to take it easy. You can't go around helping people while you're sick. If you go out there with Blumonia, not only will _you_ get worse, but you could make _other_ people sick too! You don't wanna have that happen, do ya?"

A fluffy thought bubble floated over Wander's head. He could imagine himself smiling and waving at a few space neighbors, but once started coughing again, he accidentally sprinkled some blue goop on his new friends, infecting them with Blumonia in a matter of milliseconds.

Wander cringed, his unsightly thought disappearing. "No, I do not."

Sylvia smiled. "You really wanna help folks today? You can help best by staying in bed until you are 100% better. That way, you don't have to _stay_ sick, and nobody else has to _get_ sick. Understand?"

Wander tried to give his usual, speedy nod, but the heaviness in his head made him stop halfway, moaning in dizziness again.

"Don't worree, leetle guy." The doctor chimed. "A feew injections of Snaza Plasma weell have you up and kicking beefore you know it!"

He then revealed an enormous syringe, about as long as a baseball bat, filled with bright-pink liquid. One glance at it, and Wander's face became paler than ever.

"Shots? Sh-Shots?! I. HATE. _SHOTS!"_

Wander bounced right out of bed, and clung onto an angled support beam on the ceiling, trembling with fright. Unfortunately for him, his cough acted up again, so much so that he needed both hands to catch the blue goop he was regurgitating. In the process, he let go of the beam, and found himself dangling upside down by his legs.

The wooziness from both his fever and sudden blood rush blurred Wander's vision. "Whoa, Sylvia...how'd you end up with three of yourself in here?"

Wander's unamused partner yanked him down into her arms, keeping a firm grip on him despite his frantic efforts to pry himself free.

"NO! PLEASE, SYLVIA, LET GO! I DON'T WANNA GET A SHOT! SHOTS ARE POINTY AND SCARY AND THEY _HURT!"_

None of Wander's desperate cries fazed Sylvia in the slightest. "Too bad. You got yourself sick, so you're gonna get yourself better, whether ya like it or not."

Even through the white, pearl walls of Wander's hospital bulb, one could still hear his screams of terror from a distance.

"NO! PLEASE, SYLVIA! ANYTHING BUT- _ **YEEOOOOOOWWW-HOW-HOWWWW!"**_

One bandage later, Sylvia did as best as she could to keep Wander company during his stay at the hospital planet. Between coughing fits, afternoon naps, and squeezing Sylvia's hands numb during scheduled injections, the two were rather surprised with how much they could entertain themselves in a boring, sterile quarantine. They played fun card games like Apology, Matzee, and Frapples to Frapples. To help him eat his healthy, but flavorless, diet of Bland Soup and water, Sylvia rented a few movies to distract him while he ate and drank his liquids. At bedtime, Sylvia lulled Wander to sleep with a children's storybook.

"And so the three little Plompers lived happily ever after."

Sylvia watched her little buddy with an affectionate smile. It warmed her heart to see that, despite everything he'd been through, Wander was still sleeping with a warm grin on his face. Not even occasionally coughing in his sleep seemed to get him down.

Sylvia helped herself to a pillow and blanket on the couch nearby. "You'll be better soon, pal."

The next morning, the two were playing another round of Apology, with Wander drawing the next card. "All right, my turn. Uh-oh. 'I apologize!' You're gonna have to go back to start."

Wander promptly moved his red player to where Sylvia's blue one stood, and she placed it to the starting point.

"Ok, Sylvia, you're tur-"

Wander's cough kicked in again, another handful of blue fluid covering his hands.

At that moment, the doctor returned with his giant syringe. "Ah, what a coeencidence. Time for your mediceene again."

Wander held out his trembling left arm while the rest of him leaned against Sylvia's chest, not bearing to look. "Go ahead, Doc. I'm ready."

Sylvia wrapped one arm around Wander's back "It'll be ok, buddy. Just don't try to squeeze my hand off."

In the middle of Wander's moment of horror, he glanced at a nearby window behind Sylvia. One look, and his nearly-blue eyes practically popped out of his skull.

"HOLD IT! HOLD EVERYTHING!"

Wander pressed his face against the window pane, and Sylvia and the doctor followed behind him. Right outside the hospital, there was an outdoor supermarket with rows of vendors selling all kinds of intergalactic fruit, veggies, and meat. Toward the left row, a humanized walrus in a watermelon stand failed to notice one of his melons rolling along away from his stand, and toward the alleys of several rows of apartments.

"That poor, defenseless watermelon is rolling right out of town without his rightful owner to protect it! I GOTTA HEAD DOWN THERE AND-"

Just when it seemed Wander was ready to jump out the window, he fell to his knees for another brutal coughing fit, hacking twice as hard as he did not five minutes ago.

Sylvia plucked her partner right off the floor, and plopped him back under the covers. "Oh no, you don't. You are gonna stay in bed, just like we agreed on."

Wander held his hands together, begging. "It'll only be for a second! I promise!"

"Yeah, but every second you exert yourself, like you did just now, you only make your Blumonia worse."

Wander looked down. His fluid-soaked hands definitely proved Sylvia's point.

Though she remained firm, Sylvia couldn't stay mad at the well-meaning fuzzball for long. She toned down her attitude to that of concern, gently placing one hand on Wander's back. "Listen. If it'll make you feel better, _I'll_ go down there, find that missing watermelon, and bring it right back to its rightful owner, but you gotta _promise_ me you'll stay in bed while I'm gone. It will really help _me_ if you help _yourself_ first. Deal?"

Wander thought about it for a moment, and answered with a smile. "Deal." He reached out his hand for Sylvia to shake, but then noticed how wet and unsanitary it still was, and quickly drew it back, wiping the blue liquid with some tissue paper.

"Sorry."

Sylvia gently tucked Wander in. "You just stay here and relax. That watermelon is in good hands."

As Sylvia made her way down the hall, the doctor eagerly lowered the syringe toward Wander's left arm while he was still distracted.

"Thank you, Sylvia. I believe in- ** _YEEOWWWWW!"_**

Sylvia quickly trotted to the alley she saw the melon roll in. After turning her head in several directions, she managed to get a brief glimpse at it rolling off to the left.

"Aha! I gotcha now!"

Sylvia chased the melon down what felt like a maze of apartment alleys, making sharp turns at just about any chance that persistent fruit had. After a minute or so, Sylvia was about to grab the stubborn melon when it bumped into a pothole on the roadway, causing it to bounce several feet in the air, and SPLAT! It was now a puddle of pink mush and black seeds against a brick wall.

Sylvia grumbled. "Well, there goes the melon. I just hope Wander doesn't go nuts over it."

Then her eyes popped. "Wait, who am I kidding? If I tell Wander I lost the watermelon, he'll be bouncing off the walls, if he doesn't cough his lungs out first. There's gotta be another way to help out that guy at the fruit stand..."

Sylvia turned over to the left, and noticed a nearby grocery store with wooden shelves full of fresh fruit on display, including watermelons. There was a small sign sticking up from the melons, reading "75% off for the next 2 hours!"

Sylvia's face lit up. "Now we're talkin'!"

She rushed as fast as her feet could carry her, but even within the 1.4 seconds it took to get there, she immediately found herself waiting in a line of about fifty other customers, each holding a variety of watermelons.

Sylvia lowered her eyelids again. "Of course."

Back in the hospital, Wander had his bed pulled up against the window so he could search for his friend down below.

"I wonder what's taking Sylvia so long with that melon."

As Wander darted his eyes back and forth, another sight filled his little heart with dread. A white, anthropomorphic llama was pushing her little one in a stroller, when the child accidentally dropped a red lollipop from her little hoof, leaving it lying in the middle of the white, dirt road.

Wander gnawed at his fingernails until they seemed ready to come off, but he promptly composed himself. "Now now, Wander. You promised Sylvia you wouldn't get out of bed so that nobody else could get sick..." Sadly, this composure was rather short-lived. "But there's gotta be another way to get that sweet little girl her lollipop back! I can't just deny that poor innocent child the simple pleasures that make her life so happy!"

Wander thought hard. He then noticed that among the doctor's supplies by the sink was a glass cup full of tongue depressors. In an even greater stroke of luck, Wander happened to have a small bottle of paste in his hat. An optimistic smile grew across his flushed face.

Before long, Wander had fashioned a hundred-foot-long arm made entirely out of tongue depressors glued together, complete with a hand and fingers. He had lowered it through the window, using his hands to steer it with the greatest of ease.

"Easy now..." Wander coughed. "Easy..."

Wander spent a minute or two struggling to get the lollipop onto his popsicle-stick hand. Every time he tried to get it in his "palm," it just flipped and flopped on the ground every which way.

"C'mon, c'mon..."

Finally, after that tedious struggle, Wander got the lollipop to lay on top of the hand of his popsicle arm.

"YES!"

WHAM! The second Wander had cheered for his success, two dozen one-eyed, purple crows zipped right through his tongue depressor arm, shattering it to pieces, and causing the lollipop to flop back on the ground. To add insult to injury, one of the crows landed to pick up the lollipop with her talons, and shove it right in her beak before returning to her flock.

Wander's jaw dropped, and his growl of frustration quickly switched to another coughing fit. After cleaning up his hands again, he pondered some more. "There's gotta be another way to get that girl her lolly back."

Wander lay back down in his bed, only to notice he was feeling something uncomfortable on his back. "Oooh, ow!"

After straightening his spine out, Wander's white-blue eyes popped again, and he picked up what was sitting in his bed. "Silly me. I almost tried to lie down on my bottle of Orbal Juice."

DING! Another idea popped in Wander's head, but not without a twinge of hesitation. "No no no...Sylvia said stay in bed..."

 _"WAAAAHHH-HA-HAAA!"_ The little llama was now crying her lungs out as her mom tried to buy some flowers at the supermarket. "MOMMY, I LOST MY LOLLIPOP!"

The anxiousness associated with either choice was too much for Wander to take. He frantically switched his eyes back and forth between the crying girl and his hospital bed. What would it be: stay in bed, or help a friend? His mind had such a grueling battle with his conscience, one could swear that his head was about to explode.

Mama Llama knelt down beside her child's stroller. "It's ok, sweetie. We can get you a new lollipop."

"No need for that, m'am!"

Sure enough, Wander was walking his merry way toward the two with a freshly-wrapped lollipop in his hands. He was using an Orbal Transporter as a quarantine bubble, and wore a face mask and latex gloves to prevent the spreading of germs or blue fluid.

"Terribly sorry for the intrusion," Wander chimed, his voice slightly muffled from the mask, "But I couldn't help noticing your little one's troubles, so I went down to the nearest candy shop, and bought her a brand new lolly exactly like the one she'd lost."

The young llama's face lit up. "A LOLLY!"

Her mother, however, gave a sheepish cringe. "Uh, heh heh. Thank you, um, Mr Masked Stranger."

Wander chuckled. "No need for nicknames. Just call me Wan-COUGH-ACK! Just call me Wan-"

Despite his best efforts, Wander's cough would simply not allow him to finish a proper introduction. His mask was able to absorb part of the blue liquid around his mouth, but when it became too much, the fluid dripped down his face, and onto his gloved hands. Mama Llama glanced back at the lollipop, sticking her tongue out in repugnance. "UGH!"

She promptly tossed the candy away, rushed to a stand selling hand soap, and immediately bought two bars to scrub herself and her daughter until they were covered in suds.

By the time Wander had finished, his mask and gloves were wet with blue fluid, too wet to be considered anti-bacterial anymore. "Ewww..."

Wander tossed his soaked medical accessories in a nearby trash can. "Maybe Sylvia was right. Maybe a sick helper _shouldn't_ be goin' around tryin' to help others."

Just then, Wander noticed an elderly, man-sized ladybug about five yards away from him on a motorized wheelchair. She seemed to be riding aimlessly across town until Wander spotted the pothole she was about to drive into! Having no intention of holding back, Wander dashed over to her in his Orbal bubble. "WAIT! WAIT! WAAAAAIIIIIIT!"

Unfortunately, Wander had only made it about four-and-a-half yards before another dizzy spell kicked in, making more bubbles float and pop over his head. He managed to get right to the ladybug, but collapsed right on top of the pothole she was about to hit, causing the ladybug to inadvertently pop his Orbal bubble, and ride over his chest and spine on the wheelchair.

Wander cringed as his spine and joints crack with pain. "OOF, ACK, EEK, OOH, OW!"

Although Wander managed to save the ladybug from the pothole, he left himself with a bigger headache, and now, an aching back with tire tracks on it. "...Owww..."

Wander promptly blew another Orbal Transporter bubble, struggling to regain his balance with such a heavy, dizzy head. Immediately afterwards, Wander gasped in fright at another citizen in need of help: a janitor who'd tripped on his own shoelaces. He rushed over to help him, but Wander's wet, blue hands sent the alien screaming and fleeing.

For the next hour or so, Wander darted to and fro across the planet, trying to find any way to help folks from his Orbal bubble quarantine. He tried to catch a red balloon for a baby in a buggie, but the Orbal Transporter bounced against it, making it fly higher and higher into the atmosphere. He tried helping a mailman carry some heavy packages down the street, but Wander couldn't go three steps without another coughing fit, making the postman change his mind very quickly. Wander tried sweeping an old man's front porch, but accidentally got blue liquid on the broom, and understandably, the man insisted that Wander keep it. Wander even tried opening a door for a family of twenty-five children into a local diner. As he waited for everyone to come inside, another urge to cough came in, and Wander held his breath and covered his mouth as long as humanly possible. It seemed he'd gotten in the clear until kid 25, a fifty-foot-long, sentient sausage crawled its slow way inside. No longer able to contain himself, Wander jumped behind the restaurant the second the child was inside, and spent a good twenty seconds coughing and hacking enough blue fluid to leave a five-foot-long puddle at the back of the diner. The head chef opened the door, sneering at Wander for the mess, but before he could even apologize, Wander was booted right out of the diner, flying about a hundred feet across the air, landing flat on his chest in the middle of some more apartment allies. Immediately after Wander had landed, his bottle of Orbal juice landed ten feet in front of him, bouncing off the ground, and then rolling away until it fell through an open sewer lid.

Wander struggled to his feet, his voice more hoarse and raspy than ever. "Ok, it's official; I am way too sick to be helping anyone. I gotta get back to the hospital before Sylvia notices I'm gone."

One look at Wander's surroundings, of the brick walls, trash can, and piles of garbage lying around, and he came to a very startling conclusion. "Soooooo...where am I?"

As if it weren't bad enough that Wander was lost, alone, and in serious need of medical attention, Lord Hater's spaceship was hovering a mere three-hundred-feet above the planet's orbit!

Commander Peepers and his boss were at the control station, playing a set of recorded videos of on a large TV monitor. The footage showed all the disgusting chaos Wander had caused trying to help folks in town. "Sir, our satellites indicate that Wander has been spotted trying to help people in Planet Hospice, but judging from the video tapes, it doesn't seem to be going very well."

"BLECH!" Hater cringed, pointing at a still image of Wander spewing blue fluid. "What's that icky, gross stuff that's coming out of his mouth, Peepers?"

"Can't say for sure, sir," Peepers answered. "But judging from the color and viscosity, I'd say that that's the blue discharge associated with the disease, Blumonia. One of our watch dogs just recovered from it last month."

Hater's face lit up with excitement. "Really? Is it serious? Can people _die_ from this disease?!"

"They _can_ if not given proper treatment right away."

"Oooh, _awesome!_ Where's Wander now?!"

"Lemmie just get the satellite playing the current camera footage."

With a few pushes of buttons on the panel, the monitor switched to the camera recording present-day video. A bright, red crosshairs hovered about across the screen, but after a moment, it locked onto an area on the far-left corner of the planet's map, blinking and forming a silhouette of Wander's head.

"There!" Peepers exclaimed. The screen zoomed in for an extreme close-up, revealing Wander walking in the ally with more uncontrollable coughing fits.

Hater puckered his skull lips in deep sarcasm. "Awww, wook at him, Peepers. Poor widdle Wander is all wost and all awone, without anybody to take cawe of him whiwe he's sick." This quickly followed with a malicious sneer. "Now couldn't be a better time to attack! Take us down to that planet at once! We'll destroy Wander once and for all, while he's still weak and helpless!"

"Way ahead of you, sir!"

Peepers slammed down the joystick on the pilot's seat, making Lord Hater's ship dart toward the planet like a comet.

Meanwhile, it seemed Wander had reached the end of his rope trying to find his way out. He'd grown so woozy and disoriented, his walk now looked more like tipsy wobbling, and his vision was far too blurred to see anything clearly. He supported his heavy head with both hands, but it didn't make the slightest difference. "Ohhhhh," Wander groaned. "My head feels like a big, fiery rock about now..."

All of a sudden, the blue flush on Wander's cheeks expanded across the rest of his body, coating all his orange fur in an unnatural shade of dark blue. The white in his eyes had also faded to look completely teal-blue. The second his pigments were gone, Wander's stomach began to gurgle, and with one hand pressed against his lips, he made a mad dash to the nearest open trash can, where he upchucked hard enough to soak the inside of the can with blue fluid. After that nauseating moment, Wander sat down against a brick wall, leaning one hand against his head with the other over his stomach.

"Who am I kidding? I really stuck my nose in it this time. I don't even think I can make it back to the hospital at all."

With one more dry heave, Wander collapsed against the blacktop, keeping his legs tucked in while his arms wrapped around his aching body. His voice grew gradually weaker, until it was nothing but a faint whisper, choked with chest congestion, and even a few tears.

"...Sylvia..."

"...anybody..."

 _"...please..."_

 ** _"...help."_**

Just as Wander was ready to admit defeat for himself, the shadow of Lord Hater's ship covered the entire alleyway, literally and figuratively, looking down on him from above.

"I've finally got you now, little blue Wander, and this time, you're physically incapable of doing anything about it!"

Hater's ship lowered its tongue, and at least five-dozen watchdogs raced toward him, armed with their red blasters. Wander's eyes shot up halfway, and he put every ounce of energy into clawing against the blacktop in an effort to drag himself away from Hater's minions. No longer did he believe he could "friend zone" his enemy with fun games or acts of kindness. For the very first time in his travels, Wander was genuinely fearful that Hater would take his life, if his illness didn't beat him to it.

Lord Hater was watching from his ship's camera like a kid at Christmas time. "Can it be?! No hugs?! No goofing around?! HE'S ACTUALLY COWERING IN FEAR OF ME?!" The burst of excitement made Hatey leap into the air cheering. " _ **YEEEEE-HE-HE-HESSSS!**_ Ohhh, I am savoring every moment of this!" He pulled out an MP3 player from his pocket, labeled "eVil," and took as many selfies of Wander's moment of terror as his phone would allow.

After a moment or two, it seemed like Wander had crawled across the blacktop for miles but, upon closer inspection, he noticed that he only managed to drag himself about ten inches away from where he was spotted, giving the watchdogs more than enough time to crowd around him.

Commander Peepers made his way to the front, standing directly in front of Wander with his blaster pointing at his head. "At last, after all this time, you finally get to meet your doom! If Lord Hater doesn't kill ya, then your stupid Blumonia will!"

Just then, some of the watchdogs started cracking wise, laughing at their jokes. "Hey, Wander, why so _blue?"_

"We should roll you in a ball, and put you in a fruit basket!"

"Maybe you can join Lord Hater's jazz ensemble...singing the _Blues!"_

"Prepare to be wiped clean out of the _blue!"_

"ALL RIGHT, THAT'S ENOUGH!" Peepers shouted in annoyance.

"Sorry, boss." One watchdog answered timidly. "We just always wanted to do that to a blue guy."

Peepers had his finger on the trigger of his blaster, the laser charging at the tip of the gun. "Goodbye, Wander..."

Wander's blue eyes looked like they were already staring into the face of death as Peepers took his shot.

In an astonishing turn of events, Sylvia, literally, slid into action during the brief milliseconds the laser was leaving the gun. Right before the beam could hit either of them, Sylvia shoved Wander out of harm's way, making Peepers shoot the ground by mistake, leaving a blast of black smoke in its place.

Peppers' pupil went wide. "...Did I do it? Is he really gone?!"

 _"HA! YOU **WISH!"**_

Sylvia stood ten feet beside the crowd in a bright flash of heroic starlight, carrying the semi-conscious Wander over her shoulder.

Commander Peepers nearly blew a gasket with his explosive temper. _"YOU IMBECILES! GET THEM, GET THEM **NOW!"**_ **  
**  
The watchdogs fired their blasters like there was no tomorrow, but with a literal hop, skip, and a jump on their eyeball heads, Sylvia managed to knock the entire group of underlings unconscious in ten seconds flat, all while holding Wander close to her chest, shielding him with her arms. She then noticed the trashcan Wander had just used as a puke pail, and her smirk grew.

"Hey, Peeps!" Sylvia shouted, "Have one on me!"

Sylvia grabbed the garbage bucket, and threw it hard enough to soak Peepers entire body in blue fluid.

"AHHH! EWWW, GROSSS! GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF!"

"Oh, I'll getcha off, all right!"

Gently placing Wander down on the ground, Sylvia took off her saddle, and placed the reigns around two planks of a broken picket fence, turning it into a giant slingshot. She then placed the icky, blue Peepers on the saddle, took careful aim, and pulled the reigns back as long as she could.

"Right off of this planet!"

WOOSH!

 _"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"_

Sylvia flung Peepers a hundred feet away from the allies, his head smashing clean through the windshield eyes of Lord Hater's spaceship.

Immediately afterwards, the ship pulled its tongue back in, and began jerking haphazardly across the planet's sky. The citizens could hear Hater and Peepers' voices from below.

"EWW, GROSS! PEEPERS, GET THIS STUFF OFF OF ME! GET IT OFF!"

"I'M TRYING SIR, BUT I...ugh, I don't feel so good..."

 _"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"_

With their leader shrieking like a little girl, Hater drove at lightening speed away from Planet Hospice.

"SO LONG, HATER!" Sylvia bellowed. "GET WELL _NEVER!"_

Right after saying this, Sylvia turned her attention back to someone who was in much greater in need of getting well. With delicate care, she cradled Wander in her arms, ignoring how much her skin burned from his high fever.  
Wander mustered just enough consciousness to lift his heavy head up at hers. "S-Sylvia?" He grunted weakly. "I...I'm so sor-"

Despite them being potentially germy enough to infect her, Sylvia put one finger over Wander's lips. "Shh. It's ok, Wander. Let's just get you outta here."

Sylvia took out a second bottle of Orbal juice from her pocket, and with another bubble formed, she and Wander were floating away from the outskirts of Planet Hospice.

The spectating citizens watched the two heroes with both respect and sympathy. Seeing Wander in such a bad condition made them think twice about their previous contempt for him. He may've been a public nuisance, but what he ultimately wanted was to be helpful to those around him. Sadly, his failure to recognize that had very nearly cost him his life. Now wasn't the time to be condemning Wander for his actions; what he needed the most, physically and emotionally, was healing.

Over the next week, all of Planet Hospice had a chance to rekindle from the day's previous disasters. For two full days, Wander was put on life support, breathing through an oxygen mask tied to his face, and obtaining fluids and liquid medicine through an IV in his left arm. He spent most of the time sleeping, day and night, while Sylvia spent virtually every waking moment at his bedside. Several of the town's citizens, like Mama Llama and her daughter, came in for a visit, sending warm regards to Sylvia, and leaving several get well gifts for Wander: cards, stuffed animals, toys, and enough non-Blutunia flowers to bury the little guy alive. One bouquet turned out to be several dozen daisies from Planet Asteraceae in a hovercraft vase, stopping by to give Wander some warm wishes during his comatose state.

As the week's events progressed, one could swear they heard a mellow, male voice somewhere in the background, singing and playing a song on an acoustic guitar.

 _Get well soon, Wander  
Get well soon  
May your illness float away  
Like a sad little balloon_

I know you wanna help the world  
But lay your head to rest.  
If you don't help yourself first,  
You won't be at your best.

Before long, Wander had regained enough consciousness and orange fur pigment to breathe and eat regularly, and spend more time playing games and watching movies with Sylvia. The visits from the townsfolk became more frequent, and they spent many hours making polite conversation with him, and showing him his many, many presents. Naturally, Wander expressed deep regret for all the trouble he'd caused, but it seemed the citizens had already forgiven him, giving him warm hugs and fond wishes rather than any scolding of any kind.

I miss the way  
You'd make us laugh and smile  
So rest up and recover.  
It'll be worth our while.

In three more days, the white in Wander's eyes returned, and his fluffy fur was back to his bright, orange color. The day his patient's symptoms had completely vanished, the doctor handed Wander a written document with the word "Discharge" marked in bold on the header. That one word was enough to make Wander glow a starburst of rainbow colors, and give the doctor a tender hug.

 _You'll get well soon, Wander  
You'll get well soon  
And please take to heart  
the message of this tune._

All the townsfolk crowded near the front door to Wander's hospital, leaving a clear aisle for him to walk down. The minute he and Sylvia stepped outside, the group cheered and applauded, shouting out warm thoughts with a few holding up signs with the same exclamations they made verbally.

"GOOD LUCK WANDER!"

"SO GLAD YOU'RE BETTER, MAN!"

"TRAVEL SAFE!"

"CALL ME!"

"WE LOVE YOU, WANDER!"

 _You got many friends  
To help see you through  
_ _Just be you, Wander  
Just be you_

This sendoff was far more than Wander could've imagined. Throughout his previous travels, he'd received numerous standing ovations from other planets for his good deeds and acts of kindness. Here, _Wander_ was the one most in need of help, and asserting himself in the situation made it worse instead of better. He wasn't able to help anyone during his stay, but that didn't matter to Planet Hospice in the slightest. They helped prove that best way Wander could help others while he was sick was to let others help him. All he had to do was stay his cheery, optimistic self, and the friendship came right to him.

A moment like this was far too humbling for Wander to burst into fireworks or do a goofy dance. His gratitude was so overwhelming, all he could think to do was burst out in tears of joy, and shout to the crowd, "THANK YOU! THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING!"

Sylvia turned to him with a smile and tears of her own. "We're all happy for you, Wander."

Wander leaped up around her neck for another tender hug, and she hugged back in return.

Soon, the two were trotting off on another Orbal Transporter back into outer space. Wander waved and shouted goodbye to as many people as he could from a distance.

"G'bye! See ya soon! Nice planet you got here! In a while, crocodile!"

Wander grabbed a hanky out of his hat, sniffing more happy tears. "That was hands-down one of the greatest moments of my life!"

"Mine too, pal. Mine too."

Wander's expression quickly switched. "Say, how's Lord Hater these days? Haven't seen him in a while."

Sylvia smirked. "Oh, he'll be too busy to do any evil schemes for quite a while..."

Somewhere, within the deep recesses of space, Hater's spaceship had practically become its own Blumonia quarantine. All the living quarters were full of sick watchdogs, moaning and staring into space with their puffy, blue eyes. Lord Hater had hidden underneath the covers, his bedroom filled with piles of used tissues. He'd also taken the liberty of filling up the walls and ceilings with posters of the photos he took during Wander's moment of terror.

"Peepers!" He whined. "What's taking so long with my tissues?!"

Commander Peepers tiredly opened the door, still infected himself. "Don't worry, sir." He coughed. "I found a doctor that'll cure us all in no time..."

Who should step into Hater's bedroom but the very same doctor that treated Wander on Planet Hospice. With a maniacal grin, he revealed the enormous syringe filled with more Snaza Plasma, leaving the so-called Ruler of Evil in utter terror.

 _"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"_

 **The End**


End file.
